Test speed between 2 PCs

Dirk Diggler · 4 Jan 2016 at 12:08

As title, what's the best way to test the speed I'm getting between 2 Windows 10 PCs that are on the same network? I'm trying to decide what speed I'm getting for Steam streaming, and see the difference between power line and direct cat6 connections.

this_is_gav · 4 Jan 2016 at 12:17

The simplest way would be to just transfer a large file and look to see what speed it's giving.

You'll struggle not to get adequate speed as I'm just able to stream Stream 1080p over wifi N, so if any cable-based solution can't cope then there's something up.

Dirk Diggler · 4 Jan 2016 at 12:27

this_is_gav said:
The simplest way would be to just transfer a large file and look to see what speed it's giving.

You'll struggle not to get adequate speed as I'm just able to stream Stream 1080p over wifi N, so if any cable-based solution can't cope then there's something up.

I think it may be down to reliability of Powerline. The connection just gets lost randomly.

meandu229 · 4 Jan 2016 at 12:28

There are built in stats in steam overlay you just need to turn them on.
My powerline while they maintained 10+MBps the ping times were like 35ms and lag stats were very high. Switched out for ethernet and 1ms ping and no dropped frames. Have a look in the steam streaming settings.

lude1962 · 4 Jan 2016 at 12:42

Copy a big file from 1 pc to the other, windows displays the speed,
you can also check with task manager performance-> network, shows the network utilization ie 280Mb/s
1Gb lan you'll get up to 113MB/s
100Mb 11.3 MB/s

Dirk Diggler · 4 Jan 2016 at 12:43

meandu229 said:
There are built in stats in steam overlay you just need to turn them on.
My powerline while they maintained 10+MBps the ping times were like 35ms and lag stats were very high. Switched out for ethernet and 1ms ping and no dropped frames. Have a look in the steam streaming settings.

Cheers, will do.

fezster · 4 Jan 2016 at 14:10

Use LAN speed test, always been a reliable way to measure speed for me, and is quite configurable too:

http://lifehacker.com/5589157/lan-speed-test-measures-the-speed-of-your-home-network

Dirk Diggler · 5 Jan 2016 at 19:03

I'm getting 14 MB/s when transferring a large file via Teamviewer. I'm assuming that's good? I'm just using my Virgin Media SuperHub 2.

I'm not sure what to expect as I've never paid much attention to this before.

I also can't work out any other way to transfer a file between the two PC's.

bledd · 5 Jan 2016 at 20:39

On a gigabit network, you'll get 100-110MB/s as long as the hard drives are quick enough.

Dirk Diggler · 5 Jan 2016 at 20:41

I think my Superhub is Gigabit. Will need to experiment here...

Dirk Diggler · 5 Jan 2016 at 21:16

OK, SSD to SSD file transfer via Homegroup is giving me between 90 and 110 MB/s. So network looking OK after new cables installed today. Will get Steam streaming tested.

Thanks for all the help.